Are Cozies "Real" Mysteries?

Well, of course they are! However, in the mystery/thriller world cozies are the equivalent of “the little lady”, nice enough but somewhat insubstantial, easily dismissed as a lightweight with little to offer.

Is my bias showing? Absolutely! Why is there always a pecking order? Pecking Order Syndrome shows up in all sorts of places, and ultimately, racial discrimination can be traced to it. As a kid growing up in a family of West Virginia hillbillies living in Ohio, I remember the prejudice my parents exhibited and believed.

Did my term “West Virginia hillbillies living in Ohio” send you a signal? It should have. Hill people from Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia who had moved to Ohio for jobs, were looked down on. Hillbillies were denigrated by the dominant and native white group. So, hillbillies had to make a group lower than they were on the social scale. The hillbillies of my acquaintance uniformly disliked Blacks. It was their way of feeling better about themselves.

Translating the Pecking Order Syndrome to novels, in the mystery/thriller world, thrillers are more highly regarded than mystery. International thrillers top domestic thrillers for sophistication and cross-country plotting and travel. But both are viewed as superior to mysteries.

Among mysteries, the traditional mystery is still Queen of the Hill. These classic mysteries are revered. For the rest of the subgenres, there is also a pecking order. Police procedurals and medical mysteries with all the technical detail and knowledge required are superior (in many eyes) to other mysteries.

And the lowly cozies—aren’t they cute little things—are at the bottom of the heap.

Oh, yeah? Well, listen up, Bud. Plotting any mystery, laying out the clues, pacing the action, finding relevant subplots, and creating compelling characters is identical in every mystery/thriller written.

You don’t have to have blood and gore on the page for the essential mystery. That’s just the value-added that police procedurals and thrillers bring to the party. The value-added for cozies is learning about a hobby or special interest of the author.

I am a pretty good cooker and know a lot about food. A retired police detective knows a lot about how crooks are caught and treated. Both of us are experts in our fields. Expertise is the commodity that both cozies and thrillers and other mystery subgenres share. Should we value one kind of expertise more than another?

I don’t believe so. What I prefer to read is merely that, a preference. Given great writing, expertise should be valued in any subgenre. 

If you think others would be interested in this post, please share on social media. I’ve prepared a couple of posts you can cut and paste or create your own.

Facebook: “I don’t get no respect,” might be what the cozy mystery genre might say were it able to talk. Do you agree that many regard cozies as an “also ran” kind of mystery? http://bit.ly/2uQq73K

Twitter: Are cozy mysteries equivalent to traditional mysteries or are they just fluff? @good2tweat offers her viewpoint at http://bit.ly/2uQq73K

 

A Few Recipes from PRIME RIB AND PUNISHMENT

As you know, I write culinary mysteries. I am shopping around book two in my “Dinner is Served” series, Prime Rib and Punishment. I call them “murders with taste.”

My protagonist, Alli Wesson, is a screw-up. Or she was until she and her childhood friend, Gina Smithson, started their personal chef business. With a regular income and being her own boss, it appears early-30s Alli is finally getting it together. Well, unless there’s a murder that impinges on her life. Following trails of clues means that she sometimes makes impulsive and erratic choices. Police officer boyfriend, Evan, worries about that. A lot. And so does everyone around her.

Prime Rib and Punishment finds Alli and Gina teaching at the new Culinary Arts School-Glendale (Arizona) even though the Executive Chef hates “amateur cooks.” Add in a diet scam operation and a guy with a mafia connection, and things become . . . complicated. Murder is part of the complication.

Nevertheless, Alli and Gina are gifted cooks and they’d like to share a few recipes from this book with you. When the book is published, get your two-fer—mystery plus cookbook. Enjoy these for now!

Roast Beef Roll-ups (makes one roll-up)

Makes a great lunch when traveling. Alli uses a whole block of cream cheese to make 4 roll-ups in an assembly line.

2 tablespoons cream cheese

1 teaspoon horseradish

1 whole wheat flour tortilla

3 extra-thin slices of roast beef

1 string cheese stick

10 pieces of baby spinach

Mix together cream cheese and horseradish. Spread evenly over tortilla. Press meat slices onto tortilla, covering as much of the tortilla as possible, overlapping the meat where necessary. Add spinach the same way. Lay a cheese stick along one edge then roll into a cylinder. Seal the cylinder with a small bit of cream cheese mixture to hold it together. Roll up in plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator.

Orange Marmalade Pork Tenderloin (serves 8-10)

This is a special dinner for company. The leftover pork makes great sliders for lunch with a dollop of the marinade and Dijon mustard.

pork tenderloin package (two slender ones, not the whole tenderloin)

jar orange marmalade

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 clove garlic, sliced thin

4 green onions, diced

4 tablespoons white wine, divided

Put orange marmalade, all of the garlic, green onions, and 2 T wine in a zipper bag and mush around to mix.

Add the two pork tenderloin pieces. Let marinate for at least three hours, turning a few times to distribute the marinade.

Take pork out of bag and put on grill.

Drain marinade into saucepan, reserving 2 tablespoons to brush on meat as it cooks.

Grill for 1-20 minutes, turning once. Let meat rest before slicing into medallions.

Heat remaining marinade to a boil. Add reserved 2 tablespoons wine and simmer for 5 minutes. Put in gravy boat to serve alongside meat.

Cinnamon-Nutella Brownie Bites (makes 12 mini brownies)

Here is another of Gina’s calorie-controlled desserts without sacrificing taste. Small portions mean you can enjoy big flavor. The cinnamon adds an interesting flavor layer.

½ cup Nutella                                   ¼ cup mini chocolate chips
1 large egg                                       ¼ teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon oil                                   ½ cup chopped nuts
5 tablespoons flour

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12-cup mini-muffin pan with paper or foil liners or spray with non-stick cooking spray.

Put the Nutella, egg, and oil in a medium bowl and whisk until smooth and well blended. Add the flour and whisk until blended. Add chocolate chips and cinnamon.

Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin (about 3/4 full) and sprinkle with the chopped nuts.

Bake until a toothpick comes out with wet, gooey crumbs, 11 to 12 minutes (longer for a chewier brownie).

Set on a rack to cool completely. Serve immediately or cover and store at room temperature for up to 3 days. Sometimes Alli sprinkles on powdered sugar to make them prettier.

A Month-of-Few Ingredients: Knock Your Tops Off Cupcake Frosting

This blog sometimes brings me in contact with wonderful people I have the pleasure of featuring. One such is author Leighann Dobbs who writes culinary mysteries and a whole passel of other genres. Check out her website. I happened on her by lucky accident and am in the process of reading her many works.

The first book in her “Lexy Baker Cozy Mystery” series is Killer Cupcakes. In the book Lexy has to solve the murder of her ex while running her bakery. She is suspected of killing the ex with poison in her signature bakery item, frosted cupcake tops. The book has the recipe  for chocolate espresso cupcakes and frosting. The cupcakes have too many ingredients for this month’s theme, but the vanilla butter frosting is delicious and does fit the criteria. Make the cupcakes on your own! Very good!

Unfortunately for you readers, I am not a cake decorator. Not only do I have to apologize for my photographic skills but also for my decorating non-talent. Apologies to Lee. Your recipe deserves better!

I have an embarrassing confession. This frosting is so good that I almost licked the empty bowl. I kept scraping up those little lines of frosting and eating them as I scraped. This recipe is my new forever-frosting. I can see me adding some Bailey’s Irish Cream, black cocoa powder, or some chocolate shavings. This frosting will take me through to the end of my baking days.

Knock Your Tops Off Cupcake Frosting (frosts 24 cupcakes)

2 sticks butter

3 ½ cups confectioner’s sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon heavy cream

1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (can use vanilla extract)

Bake 24 cupcakes of your choice allow them to cool while you make the frosting

Cream the butter, confectioner’s sugar and salt.

Mix cream and vanilla paste and add little at time to butter mixture to desired consistency.

Cut off the tops of the cooled cupcakes right where the cupcake top meets the liner. I used a serrated bread knife. Frost the tops and refrigerate if not serving right away.

NOTE:

I cut off the tops and then experimented with fresh baked cupcake tops and ones that sat couple of hours. It was easier (for me) to frost the dryer cupcake tops because it was easier for me to handle them. I did keep some cupcakes intact.

DH’s Rating: 5 Tongues Up   He had a split reaction. He loved the frosting, but he wanted it on the whole cupcake. He didn’t like the proportion of cupcake to frosting. So, the next night I put a whole frosted cupcake on his dessert plate. He said, “Is it allowed to have two?” You betcha. He ate two whole cupcakes, which he never does!

If you liked this recipe, I’d really appreciate you spreading the word on your social media outlets. Here are some pre-made Twitter and Facebook posts you can use or modify.

Tweet: KILLER CUPCAKES frosting #recipe from @LeighannDobbsBooks on @Good2Tweat’s blog http://bit.ly/2kTNTUp

Facebook: Are you someone who loves the cupcake top more than the whole cupcake? Try cupcake tops with this delicious frosting from Leighann Dobbs’ Killer Cupcakes culinary mystery. http://sharonarthurmoore.blogspot.com/2017/02/a-month-of-few-ingredients-knock-your.html

POTLUCK: My Plan to Win NaNoWriMo

The entry that won my National Novel Writing month contest at Write on Sisters was Potluck, 

book three in my culinary mystery series. In that post, I showed you what I was going to do to plan Potluck for NaNoWriMo success. Here’s some of what I did before November 1^st to plan my novel. I completed all the steps described in the link above.

Book Blurb (~250 words)

Making food mixes to infuse with medical marijuana seems the perfect way for Alli and Gina to supplement the income from their personal chef business. Complications to that plan arise when someone dies and Alli is accused of the murder. Alli still wonders where she belongs and who she is as she lives with a surrogate family, visits her jailed biological brother, fends off a romantic

relationship, and anticipates a visit from someone from her past. Potluck contains recipes to add medical marijuana to as well as recipes for large-portion dishes for neighborhood potluck dinners.

Microsummary:

Creating mixes for ganja foods gives Alli and Gina’s personal chef business a boost that goes up in smoke

Theme:

Family is fundamental but what constitutes family is a shifting landscape.

Sub-Themes:

1.    Insecurities affect relationships and interactions.

2.    The search for identity can be uncomfortable.

3.    Impulsivity has both good and bad sides.

Character Sketches:

ALLI WESSON and Gina, her best friend since 2^nd grade, are partners in a personal chef business that is still struggling to support the two of them. Alli always has ideas of expanding that strain their relationship. Alli is a cork-screw curled dyed red head whose impulsivity leads to as much trouble as her creativeness leads to brilliant successes. Abandoned by her parents as a teen, she moved in with Gina’s family and lives in a casita on the property. Her brother Cal showed up in the last book and is in prison for murdering his and Gina’s boss at the hospital.

GINA SMITHSON admires Alli’s contrastive personality until they clash over just how far to go. Still, the bond between them is strong and loving. Gina’s husband died so she lives with her mother for financial, emotional, and caregiving reasons. Maria helps with Nicky and Carrie’s childcare and general housekeeping. Gina is wound tight. She needs to be in a relationship but has had trouble letting go of her dead husband, Nick. A tall, thin streaked blond, she is attractive but doesn’t play to her assets.

MARIA MARTINI is Gina’s language mangling mother who took in the teen Alli when her parents deserted her. They share a bond and a passion for cooking that Gina is jealous of. In Potluck, Maria’s arthritis triggers her getting a medical marijuana card for chronic pain. She hides it from the family for a long time. Maria can be interfering but it always comes from a place of love. She is about as tall as she is wide with graying black hair.

EVAN KATZ is now a homicide detective on the Glendale police force. He and Alli have had an on-off romantic relationship for years. He wants to make the relationship permanent, but Alli is resisting. He knows she loves him, but she won’t commit and that puzzles him.

CAL WESSON wants a sole relationship with his sister Alli and resents her having a boyfriend or living with Gina’s family. He claims the murder he was imprisoned for was accidental, and while Alli wants to believe that, she is uncertain. Cal holds out the hope that Alli can be reunited with other family members that Cal claims to be in contact with. He knows family is important to her and uses her need to control her.

PEARL is Maria’s best friend and as a former hospital supervisor, she got Gina her job there. However, she was very supportive when Gina and Alli started their personal chef business. She helped Maria navigate getting her medical marijuana card through a doctor she knew to be an easy prescriber.

MOS SAENZ is a high school friend of Alli’s who owns Mos Taco, a biker bar and grill in a shady part of town. He’s always been in love with Alli but their timing for getting together has never worked. He puts Alli in touch with Bodie, a local grower to help with her questions. Tall, athletic, there isn’t a part of Mos that isn’t tattooed or pierced. Maria never liked Alli hanging out with Mos’ older crowd in high school. But Mos is a softie who loves to cook and serves his mother’s recipes at his place.

BODIE, Mos’ friend who grows pot to supply local distributors, is a ganja expert on varieties, doses, and ways of medicating. He has both legitimate and illegitimate business associates. He has more enemies than friends because of their interactions. A botany major in college, Bodie is the premier grower in the Valley. He finds Alli attractive and hits on her.

DR. FINNAGILL is a doctor who generously prescribes for medical marijuana cards, especially if you slip him some extra money. His patients are mostly men in their 20s who want to buy street cheaper marijuana but with a card that says they can have the drug legally. He also gets marijuana from local growers by recommending them as suppliers to the distributors. He gets kickbacks from both. Except Bodie. Bodie resists paying the money. The doctor threatens to stop recommending the purity of Bodie’s products to distributors and promoting the products of others unless he get a kickback.

NURSE ZOEY STEVENS is Bodie’s girlfriend. She thinks he’s seeing someone else because he’s so busy all the time. She knows about doc trying to screw Bodie over distribution, milking Bodie for money. She plays both sides.

REPRESENTATIVE NATHAN WILLIAMS is an outspoken foe of the medical marijuana legalization in Arizona. He fought hard and used the issue as his main platform plank for re-election. The problem is he is a drug addict beholden to his supplier, Bodie. If his addiction is made public, he loses everything. Bodie has indicated that if Williams changes his mind on the legislation and offers protection, that would keep him quiet about the Congressman.

DONNY BUTCHER  is another friend of Mos’ who is a druggie known for petty thefts. He robs local growers in small quantities so he won’t be caught. But Bodie confronts him with evidence and threatens to call the police. Donny, who uses more than MJ, gets very angry and threatens Bodie as well. He also knows about the Congressman’s addiction.

SETH STEVENS, a rival grower, is jealous of the success of the varieties Bodie is growing and mixing and providing to suppliers. He knows Bodie is doing something underhanded and files charges with the police to interfere with Bodie’s business, but he can’t gather enough evidence to convince the police. Bodie also was romantically involved with his sister while he and Bodie were initially in business together. They separated over ethical issues. Seth knows that the doctor is putting the screws to Bodie over distribution issues.

BELINDA FRIDMANN, cousin of Evan (but Alli doesn’t know it); journalism grad student writing thesis; enrolled in cooking school to do investigation, hates cooking and is bad at it ; helped Alli solve murders. Graduated now and working free lance doing investigations and articles.

Key Events:

1.    Maria’s arthritis is so bad she gets a medical marijuana card for chronic pain and a customer can’t inhale marijuana so Alli and Gina create recipes. to add MJ to leading Alli to want to market the MJ-friendly mixes.

2.    Alli wrestles with her relationship to her brother Cal, just released from prison and with Evan her boyfriend.

3.    Through a high school friend who distributes marijuana, Alli finds a grower as a resource for recipes and dosages.

4.    While visiting the grower, she observes a threatening note, overhears a phone conversation, and witnesses a confrontation.

5.    The pot grower is killed.

6.    Alli receives a mysterious letter and afterward acts distant and testy.

7.    Alli is arrested for killing the pot grower and her recent behavior seems to point that way.

8.    Out on bail, Alli begins to track down various suspects to uncover the real murderer.

9.    Alli is kidnapped by the killer but manages to save herself and get him arrested.

10.Alli reveals a high school pregnancy and that her child wants to meet her.

Scene	Who	Where	When	Point of Scene	What Happens
1	Maria, Pearl, Dr. Finnagill, Nurse Zoey. Bodie	Medical Marijuana Clinic	Morning, early Sept	Maria gets med MJ card to treat arthritis; Bodie arrives with shipment, argues with Doc; see neighbor as leaving	There early so maybe no one will see them; Pearl and Maria talk about how to hide from family; concerned MJ will not be available because of what heard; decide to get different devices and use at Pearl’s
2	Alli, Gina, Ms. Peterson	Peterson’s kitchen	Same morning	Woman undergoing chemo wants to adjust meal plan	A & G concerned woman can’t eat but must. Plan a bland diet with lots of nutrients; woman asks if they’ll help her put MJ in food; shows them a food (recipe)
3	Alli, Gina, Maria, Pearl	Maria’s kitchen	Labor Day	Potluck neighborhood party makes Maria worry about discovery	Gina and Alli overhear Maria talking to Pearl about being outed at the potluck (recipe)
4	Alli, Maria	Family room	Early next afternoon	Alli discovers Maria is hiding her pot use and confronts her	While doing Internet search, Alli finds pot sites; smells pot on Maria; pot to eat
5	Alli, Maria	Alli’s kitchen	Late afternoon	They try to make a food product and both get too buzzed	Alli and Maria try to adapt a (recipe) for Maria to ingest her med mj so no one else in the family knows
6	Alli, Gina	Kitchen	Next day, morning	Alli tries to get Gina to agree to make mixes for Med MJ	Gina appalled at the idea; has no idea Maria needs it, too. Refuses Alli’s idea without more research; don’t know what they’re doing; fixing casserole for dinner (recipe)

I continued this way for 40 scenes, which printed off, were glued to 5x8” cards for me to turn over each day as I work my way through the scenes.

Well, back to turning over scene cards. Onward to NaNo winning! Oh, and my word count stands at 14, 111--ahead of schedule! So far.

17 Steps to Writing Culinary Mysteries

Potluck, book three in the “dinner is served” series, won the readers’ contest for which book I will write for National Novel Writing Month. Wahoo! My publisher, Billie Johnson at Oak Tree Press, will be delighted that this one won’t take as long to get to her as book two has!

This post borrows portions from the blog over at Write onSisters that I write on Tuesdays. Over there, I wrote about cozy mysteries and what the 16 elements are for writing a cozy. In this post, I want to drill down even deeper to talks about a special kind of cozy: the culinary mystery.

A culinary mystery is a sub-genre of cozy mysteries that prominently features food. Often that is done through the profession of the amateur sleuth. Less often, food is presented as important to a character, and well-described, but no recipe is given. Most often that happens with detectives who relish (!) food or with food critics describing restaurant fare.

Other culinary mysteries, in fact most of them, have the amateur sleuth involved in food preparation in some way. They might be personal chefs, caterers, cooking school teachers, restaurant chefs, or bakery owners. In one series, the woman is just a great home cook.

Many of the elements of the traditional mystery appear in other sub-genres of mystery. Cozies are a variant on the theme. In the list below, the first seven elements are the same in cozies and traditional mysteries, but to make your mystery a cozy, you need to add in nine more elements. Number 17 is what makes your cozy a culinary mystery.

1) Cozy mysteries are always a puzzle to solve.

2) All clues are revealed to the reader but obscured with red herrings and false leads.

3) Cozy mysteries feature a murder (most often) or a crime of great substance.

4) The victim typically is not admirable, thus the crime, if not justifiable, is often understandable.

5) The murder or other significant crime often occurs very near the beginning, in the opening pages. But not always. Cozies can introduce the murder well into the story.

6) Murders take place “off stage” so there is little or no explicit violence or gore described.

7) Cozy mysteries use plot devices to further the confusion of clues, suspects, and timelines.

8) The reluctant and very clever sleuth uses common sense to solve the mystery, is not a professional, and is drawn into solving the crime by circumstances.

9) The villain is clever and smart but not equal to the sleuth.

10) Cozy mysteries are most often set in a small town or rural setting so you get to know residents across books.

11) Almost all cozy mysteries are a series.

12) The cozy mystery series usually has a theme or an occupation or a hobby to tie it together.

13) Cozies involve more active crime solving than traditional mysteries. Readers want more than somebody being interviewed. Cozies have more action and dangerous situations. However, they are still considered light reading in the mystery realm.

14) Whereas cozies are generally G-Rated, they have evolved to where there may be mild cursing and the mention of sex “off stage”.

15) Cozies often have humorous components and/or quirky characters.

16) Cozy mysteries often have punny titles tied to the theme/occupation/hobby of the series. My culinary mysteries for example have titles of Mission Impastable, Prime Rib and Punishment, Potluck, Cooks in the Can, Tequila Mockingbird, and Ancient Grease.

17) Culinary mysteries may or may not include recipes, but all of them feature food prominently.

If you want to start writing culinary mysteries, here are some authors to read. Note the elements so you can write these fun books, too!

Diane Mott Davidson

Leighann Dobbs

Misty Evans

Nancy Fairbanks

Jerrilyn Farmer

Jennifer L. Hart

Carolyn Hughey

Josi Kilpack

Harper Lin

Sharon Arthur Moore !

Tamar Myers

Joanne Pence

Leigh Selfman

Connie Shelton

Lou Jane Temple

Red Herrings and the Culinary Mystery

I looked it up once. Did you know that herrings, once smoked, turn reddish? I didn’t. In my writing world, I associate red herrings with false clues, logical fallacy, evasive information, a diversion of attention. I didn’t know they were really real. I thought they were a reflection of the real but non-existent, thus misleading.

Mystery authors use red herrings in order to make the puzzle of the mystery tale an active interaction between the reader and the author. I think mystery readers have to work harder than any other fiction readers. Not only are there the normal elements to keep track of, such as character arcs and plot points, but the added element of purposeful distraction makes readers question everything.

Nothing can be taken at face value. The reader MUST mistrust the author. The author is out to fool the reader. The author purposefully misleads down dark alleys, shrouded doorways, and tunnels. The successful mystery writer has the reader searching for patterns, discarding data, elevating other pieces of information. The best mystery is a hard--but, doable--verbal jigsaw puzzle.

Because it must be solvable by the attentive reader. Or at least be a satisfying solution to the discerning reader who agrees that, even if not solved before the end, the author’s solution was foreshadowed appropriately. No good mystery writer uses the deus ex machina device. The clues, though obscured, must be there.

But back to the expression, red herring. For centuries, red herrings have had a dual meaning. My Oxford English Dictionary (Yes, I do have my very own OED!) records the first use in print of the misleading definition in 1686. That was a while ago, eh? In print, it was used as drawing the red herring food across the track to provide a distraction from the real issue.

Edgar Allan Poe, considered the first modern mystery writer (father of the detective story), used red herrings on occasion. Now it is de rigueur for mystery writers to use false clues to keep the mystery going.

On a food note, I guess I could use red herrings in some Jamaican dish or another in an upcoming book. That would be a twist in a culinary mystery no one would see coming--real red herrings to conceal the literary ones! Speaking of culinary mysteries and red herrings, have you read Mission Impastable yet?

For more info on red herrings, read these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/red-herring.html

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/30239/where-does-the-phrase-red-herring-come-from

I Scream for Ice Cream

Somewhere, somehow in one of my culinary mysteries I’m going to have to do ice cream/gelato/frozen yogurt as stand-alone recipes across books or as a recipe strand in one book.

Each book in my Oak Tree Press culinary mystery series, “Dinner is Served”, will have a recipe strand. Other recipes will be included, but most will fit the strand. Mission Impastable is pretty clear--lots of pasta recipes. Prime Rib and Punishment? Meats, of course. Peas Porridge Pot? That one will focus on veggies and medical marijuana recipes. Cooks in the Can has Alli and Gina cooking with lots of canned goods at the country jail. You get the idea.

So where could I tuck in frozen confections? Of course, I could include some in several different books. Or I could write a mystery meant to include ice cream and related desserts. I could call the mystery Cold Case or maybe I Scream. What do you think? Why don’t you name it in the comments section below? If yours is selected, I’ll acknowledge you when that book is written.

But why wait? Here are a couple of family favorites I make. When the weather turns warm like this, it’s time to break out the ice cream maker.

Caramel Chocolate Chip Nut (makes a little more than a quart)

½ cup milk

1 can dulce de leche condensed milk

sprinkle of salt

2 cups heavy whipping cream

¼ cup chopped nuts

¼ cup mini-chocolate chips

Whisk milk and dulce de leche until smooth. Add salt and cream. Whisk until incorporated.

Pour into ice cream maker and process for 20-30 minutes until ice cream is soft frozen. Add nuts and chocolate chips slowly until blended. Turn off ice cream maker and put into container and freeze for several hours.

Soft-Serve Chocolate Ice Cream Shake (makes a bit more than a quart--serve immediately)

4 cups thick chocolate milk

1 can condensed sweetened milk

Whisk together. Process in ice cream maker until it reaches soft-serve stage. Pour into glasses and serve with a straw and spoon.

I have so many more. London loves my strawberry gelato. Both Chicago and Brooklyn devour my Ben and Jerry’s Heath Bar Crunch ice cream. DH loves the fruited gelatos and frozen yogurts. Yeah, I have to include some of these in my culinary mystery books.